I have a fair bit of experience with word and phrase filtering - in fact I developed my code on phpBBS.

Some things that may be obvious but I'll offer them anyway

1. Spamming is very easy to do with various robots
2. Intelligent bots now exist to defeat captchas (I hate those things anyway) and appear to be entirely human - there are many more of these
than you might imagine. They are everywhere.
3. Most spamming is just malicious and the spammer will put much
effort into bypassing security
4. Some spamming is now done "live" by low paid teams in asia
5. NEVER EVER telephone or write - you have no idea if the number given has any connection to the message and could end up with legal problems yourself
6. When filtering try to look for patterns - same domains - same times of postings - (if you want to be clever) same message paths - same phrases same punctuations etc. Spamming always has such patterns.
7. Filter on phrases as well as words - include missspellings plurals etc
8. collect a database of the full details of the spam message - (dont just delete them) you can use that to identify patterns and as evidence should things "get nasty"
9. If you can demonstrate financial loss (labour costs etc) you can use the
small claims court. Even if you lost the spammer will think very hard before repeating the actions. If you win you can get costs and its not that expensive anyway.
10. There is at least one very big blacklist circulating but access to it
is by invitation but you could start your own. I'd suggest you do it quietly though. Some see the likes as a red flag to a bull.
11. Given the proliferation of these (removed by spam filter) messages you might be able to persuade your local bobby that it constitutes harrasment.
12. Any genuine business using spam will stop as soon as they get a few complaints or if you send a polite email asking to be removed from their lists (keep copies!) - so on going spamming is either idiots or malicious attempts to damage you.

13 - No - a business model based on spam has never worked. A few people
are stupid enough to fall for any con trick and thats why they do it - money can be made but spamming never supports or maintains any business that I've ever heard of.

14. Get in the habit of telling suppliers you will not accept emails without a valid return address. The practice of: noreply@example.com is your biggest enemy.
(and EXPECT them to read any replies you do send and tell them so)

And finally - be very careful of clicking the "remove" option. It is usually used to find out if anyone is there to fine tune responses.

I have a fair bit of experience with word and phrase filtering - in fact I developed my code on phpBBS.

Some things that may be obvious but I'll offer them anyway

1. Spamming is very easy to do with various robots
2. Intelligent bots now exist to defeat captchas (I hate those things anyway) and appear to be entirely human - there are many more of these
than you might imagine. They are everywhere.
3. Most spamming is just malicious and the spammer will put much
effort into bypassing security
4. Some spamming is now done "live" by low paid teams in asia
5. NEVER EVER telephone or write - you have no idea if the number given has any connection to the message and could end up with legal problems yourself
6. When filtering try to look for patterns - same domains - same times of postings - (if you want to be clever) same message paths - same phrases same punctuations etc. Spamming always has such patterns.
7. Filter on phrases as well as words - include missspellings plurals etc
8. collect a database of the full details of the spam message - (dont just delete them) you can use that to identify patterns and as evidence should things "get nasty"
9. If you can demonstrate financial loss (labour costs etc) you can use the
small claims court. Even if you lost the spammer will think very hard before repeating the actions. If you win you can get costs and its not that expensive anyway.
10. There is at least one very big blacklist circulating but access to it
is by invitation but you could start your own. I'd suggest you do it quietly though. Some see the likes as a red flag to a bull.
11. Given the proliferation of these (removed by spam filter) messages you might be able to persuade your local bobby that it constitutes harrasment.
12. Any genuine business using spam will stop as soon as they get a few complaints or if you send a polite email asking to be removed from their lists (keep copies!) - so on going spamming is either idiots or malicious attempts to damage you.

13 - No - a business model based on spam has never worked. A few people
are stupid enough to fall for any con trick and thats why they do it - money can be made but spamming never supports or maintains any business that I've ever heard of.

14. Get in the habit of telling suppliers you will not accept emails without a valid return address. The practice of: noreply@example.com is your biggest enemy.
(and EXPECT them to read any replies you do send and tell them so)

And finally - be very careful of clicking the "remove" option. It is usually used to find out if anyone is there to fine tune responses.

We've been trying to clean it up as much as possible (me, the moderators - mostly the moderators).

We have a planned upgrade for the forum but it's still a couple of months away.
I will check with the web developer if we can bump this up int he priorities list. I trust the latest PHPbb versions have better controls for this.

The other downside of spam is that it forced us to block links the first posts which might also puts down some firstcomers.

As I write this I'm coming to a new idea which is manual approval of the first post(s) of a new user.
Again, I'll have a word with the web developer. This seems to be a nice way to stop spam without disrupting interaction between regular forum members.

Hopefully this will resolve the issue.

Best,
Pedro.

SPAM is a severe issue unfortunately.

We've been trying to clean it up as much as possible (me, the moderators - mostly the moderators).

We have a planned upgrade for the forum but it's still a couple of months away.
I will check with the web developer if we can bump this up int he priorities list. I trust the latest PHPbb versions have better controls for this.

The other downside of spam is that it forced us to block links the first posts which might also puts down some firstcomers.

As I write this I'm coming to a new idea which is manual approval of the first post(s) of a new user.
Again, I'll have a word with the web developer. This seems to be a nice way to stop spam without disrupting interaction between regular forum members.

It's very annoying to go to robosavvy website and found those spammer at latest post list. Is it possible to grant a previlege for certain level of user (savvy roboter or higher)to delete those spam post.

Personally I wouldnot mind to do that (delete spamming post) if I have the previlege to do that.

regards,

From the name they use, I quite sure they came from asian country.

It's very annoying to go to robosavvy website and found those spammer at latest post list. Is it possible to grant a previlege for certain level of user (savvy roboter or higher)to delete those spam post.

Personally I wouldnot mind to do that (delete spamming post) if I have the previlege to do that.

It will be great to have more moderators, then we can clean up quicker. Also manual approval will be possible with more moderators and I hope not be too frustrating for valid new members due to delay.

The "Latest Forum Posts" seems to update after 30 minutes or so. If you can clean spam quickly, it never comes up there. However deleting spam will also take time before deleting the entry in the "Latest Forum Posts" box.

To avoid spammers using initial good posts to gain status, I also tend to delete posts which are just " Hi" or even compliments posts if they are not on current topics and the poster is not a member I know. Also look out for posts which are just cut and paste of previous posts on same topic, often with a URL added.

It will be great to have more moderators, then we can clean up quicker. Also manual approval will be possible with more moderators and I hope not be too frustrating for valid new members due to delay.

The "Latest Forum Posts" seems to update after 30 minutes or so. If you can clean spam quickly, it never comes up there. However deleting spam will also take time before deleting the entry in the "Latest Forum Posts" box.

To avoid spammers using initial good posts to gain status, I also tend to delete posts which are just " Hi" or even compliments posts if they are not on current topics and the poster is not a member I know. Also look out for posts which are just cut and paste of previous posts on same topic, often with a URL added.

Sent you a PM - also, I see LOTS of spam accounts - hundreds of new messages a day, many from the same accounts - what's the best route to do a ban / block on a user? If there was a "suggest to ban", that'd be nice. I can moderate posts and such, but much of the garbage that shows up comes from accounts that clearly should be blocked (along with their IP?). Ex, "newserversta", that one and a number of other spam accounts should be banned.

While we're on the topic, does phpBB support a moderator forum like vBulletin? I'm a big fan of vBulletin - I used to be SuperAdmin on a pretty good sized board until I left that hobby (RC boating - moved away from a lake in the back yard - fun hobby, though) - helped them with db problems, forum upgrades, etc. CNCZone uses vBulletin, so does RCGroups...

Thanks,Paul

Hey Pedro,

Sent you a PM - also, I see LOTS of spam accounts - hundreds of new messages a day, many from the same accounts - what's the best route to do a ban / block on a user? If there was a "suggest to ban", that'd be nice. I can moderate posts and such, but much of the garbage that shows up comes from accounts that clearly should be blocked (along with their IP?). Ex, "newserversta", that one and a number of other spam accounts should be banned.

While we're on the topic, does phpBB support a moderator forum like vBulletin? I'm a big fan of vBulletin - I used to be SuperAdmin on a pretty good sized board until I left that hobby (RC boating - moved away from a lake in the back yard - fun hobby, though) - helped them with db problems, forum upgrades, etc. CNCZone uses vBulletin, so does RCGroups...